This question was asked of Pittsburgh Penguins players: If MarioLemieux and Alexei Kovalev were airlifted to a frozen pond innorthern Ontario, given sticks and a puck and asked to do themost spectacular hockey tricks imaginable, who would win--Mariothe Magician or the Sorcerer's Apprentice?

There were wows and hedges and political calculations ("He signsmy checks," fourth-line wing Steve McKenna said of Lemieux, whoalso owns the team), and in the end the vote was too close tocall. Lemieux has spent his career undressing the NHL's bestdefensemen with his savvy and slickness. But can he drop to hisknees just inside the blue line and saucer the puck 40 feet inthe air so it lands on top of the net? Can he, at full speed,put a skate atop the puck, pirouette almost 360 degrees and kickthe puck ahead to himself? Kovalev, a right wing, does both ofthose things.

The swing vote came from an unexpected precinct. "I'd say Kovy," Lemieux admitted. "He's the best stickhandler I've ever seen. Quickness. Hands. A much better stickhandler than me. He's got the talent to be the best player in the world."

Kovalev's game is all curlicues and grace notes: rococo art in an age of dump-in simplicity. He doesn't play hockey, he ornaments it. There are eight million stories of his virtuosity in the naked dressing room, but a favorite is the hat trick he completed against the New York Islanders last season by bursting down the wing, shooting off his back foot as he crossed the goal line and beating Garth Snow high to the short side from a wicked angle--a shot that drew a stare from Snow and a laugh from Kovalev. He raised the bar, then roofed the puck under it.

"How do painters come up with ideas?" Kovalev asked rhetorically as he picked at a chicken Caesar salad one recent afternoon. "Maybe something comes into their heads, and they think about it, and that's what they end up painting. Same thing with me. Something comes into my head, and I'll try it. It looks funny and unreal at first, but then you keep doing it, and it becomes easier."

Kovalev is 6'1" and 221 pounds of hockey inventiveness, the perfect marriage of man, stick and puck. Through Sunday he was tied for second in the NHL, with 39 points, and first in aesthetics. "He's one of those guys you watch even when he's on the ice by himself," Penguins defenseman Jamie Pushor says. "You can watch a guy shoot hoops alone, but you generally wouldn't watch a hockey player. Except him."

The background: an indifferent crowd on a November night in Sunrise, Fla. The foreground: the Pittsburgh line of Kovalev, Lemieux and wing Aleksey Morozov. The scene: The three Penguins come out whipping the puck around against the Florida Panthers with such brio that those in charge of the in-house music during stoppages should dispense with the rock and roll and play Sweet Georgia Brown. The only trick Kovalev doesn't pull in the first period is the confetti-in-the-water-bucket move. Three times in one play he beats defenseman Ivan Majesky, who chases him around the left face-off circle like a golden retriever.

But in the second period the masterstrokes turn into fingerpainting, a mess of blind passes. This is art for art's sake, not hockey's, and it is the sort of display that has marred Kovalev's audacious work throughout his pro career, which began with the New York Rangers in 1992--93. Lately he has become a superior finisher--he scored 44 goals in 2000--01, 18 more than his previous best--and over the past two-plus seasons he has ranked sixth in shots, having overcome an innate Russian reticence about firing the puck. Yet in weak moments he chooses style over substance.

"His game has changed," Penguins defenseman Ian Moran says. "But he still enjoys beating guys one-on-one too much." For instance, against Florida on this night Kovalev runs out of room along the boards and drops a soft pass to Lemieux that results in a turnover and a four-on-two rush by the Panthers. Kovalev makes almost no effort to get back into the play. He is out of gas at the end of a shift that lasts too long, which recalls an incident eight years ago that became the signature piece in his portfolio.

Kovalev scored the goal that preceded Mark Messier's famous hat trick in Game 6 of the 1994 semifinals between the Rangers and the New Jersey Devils; and the next postseason he lay on the ice long enough after getting slashed for the referee to stop play and disallow a Quebec Nordiques' goal; but the most memorable story about him involves a game against the Boston Bruins in 1994. Kovalev had been overstaying his standard 45-second shift so routinely that in the third period, when he finally skated to the bench for a change, the exasperated Rangers coach, Mike Keenan, waved at him to stay on the ice. This went on and on until the game was over. Depending on whom you believe, Kovalev played a record 11-or nine-or four-minute shift. Keenan has always maintained that until his teammates clued him in following the match, Kovalev thought he was being rewarded rather than punished. Kovalev, however, insists he had it figured out within three minutes.

In Pittsburgh things do not always have to be accomplished in a New York minute. The Eurocentric Penguins have a loose group because management usually allows players to find their own comfort level by letting them be creative on the ice. A liberated Kovalev, who was shipped to Pittsburgh in November 1998 for center Petr Nedved, ultimately became a point-a-game player. Through Sunday he had 322 points in 320 career matches with the Penguins.

While those numbers qualify Kovalev for stardom in the Dead Puck Era, Lemieux matter-of-factly notes that his teammate's stats "aren't great" for a player so gifted. Kovalev's effort is beyond reproach; he consistently is the last player to leave the ice after practice, a lifelong habit. As teenagers with Dynamo Moscow, Kovalev and Islanders center Alexei Yashin would slip out of the dormitory, grab keys to the rink and play shinny late into the night. Kovalev often would tug on goaltender's gear and play in the cage to develop a better feel for what a netminder could and couldn't stop.

"He's so analytical," Penguins center Kent Manderville says. "He's out there after practice working on one-timers from the point"--Kovalev is the rare NHL forward who quarterbacks the power play--"and talking about keeping square to the pass and not opening up the hips so you can come through quicker. Almost like a golf pro." Kovalev, in fact, won the club championship last summer at Willow Ridge Country Club in Harrison, N.Y., beating men who, he says, "got nervous because they aren't pro athletes. I'm used to pressure."

Kovalev's interest in golf was piqued at his first NHL training camp, in 1992, when he saw New York forward Joe Kocur hit a drive from his knees during a Rangers outing. The only language Kovalev shared with Kocur at the time was athleticism, but one year later Kovalev showed off the same trick shot to delighted teammates. "My life can't just get stuck on hockey," Kovalev says. "I've always been interested in everything, and I want to learn."

When his fingers proved too thick to pluck guitar strings, Kovalev took up the saxophone, which he learned from a Russian jazzman named Igor Butman in New York City. Kovalev also became a pilot after a friend took him on a low-altitude flight over Manhattan six years ago. Now Kovalev, who logs 90 to 100 hours of flying time per year, owns a six-seat Cessna 414. That proved handy in early October, when he dropped off prospect Konstantin Koltsov with the Penguins' farm team in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., while en route to New York to help move his wife, Eugeni, and infant son, Nikita, to Pittsburgh for the season.

The next big move for the 29year-old Kovalev, who is earning $4.6 million this season, could be out of Pittsburgh. He has arbitration rights next season and the presumed bonanza of unrestricted free agency in 2004. Fleeing the artists' colony in Pittsburgh might be lousy for his career--he won't ride shotgun for Lemieux or have the same degree of freedom in another system--but he would undoubtedly become the best-paid freelancer in history.

"As players we learn a lot about the game and ourselves as we progress through our careers," says Manderville. "For Alexei it's a much more pronounced education because of his skill. In the final part of last year, with Mario out [with a hip injury], the team relied on Alexei heavily to produce. He did. And he definitely has another level beyond that. Certainly there's a fire in his eyes."

That is either fire or the glimmer of an idea for his next suitable-for-framing star turn. He was watching a tape of his old goals recently and saw a wraparound move in which he came down the left side handling the puck on his forehand and circled the net. He figures that the next time, instead of trying to stuff the puck inside the post, he'll keep going, keep drifting, keep patient and, poof, top-shelf. Coming soon to an 18,000-seat frozen pond near you.

COLOR PHOTO: PHOTOGRAPH BY BOB ROSATO PORTRAIT OF BRILLIANCE Kovalev is so adept with the puck that he's the rare NHL forward who runs the power play.COLOR PHOTO: LOU CAPOZZOLA POTENT PENGUIN Kovalev, the NHL's No. 2 scorer, became a point-a-game man after Pittsburgh acquired him in '98.

"He's the best stickhandler I've ever seen," says Lemieux, "He'sgot the TALENT TO BE THE BEST PLAYER in the world."

Before he became the premier postseason performer of his generation, the Patriots icon was a middling college quarterback who invited skepticism, even scorn, from fans and his coaches. That was all—and that was everything